… but the kitchen sink (by Duncan Chapman)

About the Piece

… but the kitchen sink was created using the new software Compose With Sounds. In making this piece I set myself the restriction of composing something only using the most basic level of transformations available to try and find out what the possibilities of the new software were. All the sounds in the piece are the same ones that Leshaun from Trinity School in Nottingham has been using to create her piece and they were recorded by Andrew Hill with the intention of being a set of “interior sounds”, as a complement to his set of “exterior sounds”.

…but the kitchen sink opens with all of these played together in a chaotic “domestic explosion” fashion which gives way to episodes of calmer music revealing the hidden sounds of everyday objects and culinary processes. Everything comes from the kitchen and eventually returns to it in the form of a sonic soup bubbling away quietly on the stove.

About the Composer

Duncan Chapman (1964) is a freelance composer, sound artist, educator and performer. He works regularly with many leading music organisations in Britain including The Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Royal Festival Hall, CBSO, BCMG, Wigmore Hall, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC and Sound & Music. He is a frequent traveller to more exotic locations with projects and performances in Tokyo, Singapore, Budapest and throughout Europe.

Current projects include leading the Fanfare project for the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, a large orchestral piece for the London Mozart Players, a commission for a trio with live electronics for BCMG and a participatory opera for the Sound Festival in North East Scotland based on collections of people’s favourite environmental sounds.